


Survival. Or Lack Thereof.

by bip_1060



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:51:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bip_1060/pseuds/bip_1060
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post X2. No relation, whatsoever to X3. <br/>Bobby Drake deals with John's leaving. Badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival. Or Lack Thereof.

Bobby woke up, and promptly stubbed his toe.

What a terrible way to begin his week. Monday morning and a stubbed toe.

Johnny had been gone for 4 months, one week, five days, and 12 hours.

That was how Bobby measured time now. How long since Johnny has been gone.

The other students thought he’d gone crazy, Rogue especially. There had been no one else who was close to Johnny like he had been.

He hasn’t spoken in 4 months, one week, five days and 11 hours.

Who was worth talking to, without Johnny?

The Professor watched him, relentlessly, but he left Bobby alone. Maybe he didn’t know how to make Bobby talk yet.

Bobby’s shields were unusually good for a non-telepath. Thanks to Jean. He was natural broadcaster. He gave all the telepaths headaches without the shields.

Scott was too sad about Jean. Logan went away again. Rogue broke up with him. No one spoke to him anymore. It was a good thing. It was what he wanted.

Storm would sit with him, as he read sometimes. And hold his hand. Bobby thought that he probably seemed calming to her. There was a lot of chaos that lasted after …. Stryker.

His silence calmed some of the younger students too. They didn’t talk to him exactly. But they’d come to his room, and sit with him. Fall asleep on the floor on pallets he made for them. He didn’t seem threatening, even while silent.

Nothing particularly bothered him anymore. He supposes that’s a bad thing. The Professor informs him that he is just a step above catatonic. That while there is nothing he can do to make Bobby talk, he does wish he could be more engaged in what is happening around him.

Bobby doesn’t understand why everyone is so concerned.

There wasn’t anything wrong with him. Engaging just wasn’t worth it right now. Johnny would come back one day. He’d probably kill Bobby though. Bobby could be okay with that. But it has to be Johnny.

It has to be Johnny that kills him.

 

6 months. 2 weeks. 3 days. 17 hours.

There’s a knock on the door in the middle of the night.

Magneto, Mystique and Johnny walk into the house, when Storm answers the door.

Come to help fix Cerebro.

They all need Cerebro.

Pyro looks around his old school. He feels different as he stands there. Much different from 6 months before. He feels stronger. He feels more   
independent. He feels less connected to the walls around him.

He still wants to see Bobby though. He wants to show how much he’s changed. How he isn’t weakened by those around him anymore.

“He’s changed.”

The Professor had a grave look on his face.

“I need your help, Pyro. Just not with Cerebro.”

Johnny walked up the stairs, down the halls of the mansion, all without thinking about it. He walked into his –

No. He walked into Bobby’s room.

There were children on the floor, asleep. Blankets and sleeping bags and pillows were all around the floor with the children.

They didn’t stir as he moved towards Bobby’s bed. Why they were there at all, he didn’t understand.

“Bobby?”

Blue eyes opened to look at Johnny. A cold hand reached out and touched his cheek.

“Bobby.”

 

Nine days later Bobby still had yet to utter a word.

Johnny had become concerned. More so than when the Professor asked him to help. He’d asked around. He had been the cause of Bobby’s silence. Surely he was the cure?

But perhaps not. Perhaps he would just listen to Bobby’s silence for the rest of his life.

He was afraid to leave Bobby like this. Magneto said it would be another week before they would leave. Bobby needed to be talking by then. Johnny was leaving either way.

He smiled now. Johnny had been told that Bobby had stopped smiling months ago.

 

Rogue avoided them both. She couldn’t stand to see Bobby happy with Johnny. Johnny specifically. It was his fault after all.

The Professor observed the two of them. He hoped for a better outcome than he had had.

Magneto and Mystique seemed… unsurprised by his devotion. Maybe they knew him better than he thought.

 

Johnny talked to Bobby all the time. He didn’t care if Bobby answered or not. He wanted to explain why he left.

He raged at Bobby. He shouted and screamed and yelled and threw things and fire.

He cried.

He sobbed.

He wished Bobby would talk to him. Just talk to him.

Bobby would run his finger through Johnny’s hair. He listened and hugged and kissed and wished Johnny would just calm down.

 

Bobby listened to Johnny.

He listened to all the pain he’d felt.

To all the guilt he had for what Bobby had become.

To the joy he’d felt at being free of the mansion.

The sadness he’d felt at leaving Bobby behind.

The anger he’d felt that Bobby didn’t want to come with him.

He had though. He wanted to be with Johnny. But not like that. Not in a group of violence. Not in a place surrounded by hatred.

He wanted them to be free of that.

He wanted them to just be able to live their lives together.

But Johnny couldn’t wait for that.

Johnny was bad at waiting.

But Bobby didn’t want him to feel bad.

Johnny wasn’t going to kill him.

Bobby would get better.

For Johnny.

 

The next day they were leaving.

Johnny was afraid.

He hadn’t been afraid to do anything since he was a small child.

He was terrified of leaving Bobby.

Not because Bobby hadn’t improved. He had. Remarkably. More than he thought possible. And Bobby had assured him, in writing, that he wouldn’t fall into the same pattern. That he would get better.

Johnny – not Pyro , Johnny – was afraid of letting the best thing in his life go.

He’d told Bobby everything.

His whole world rested in Bobby’s hands and Bobby just took it and cared for Johnny.

Johnny had no idea how Bobby didn’t hold anything against him.

How Bobby could just let everything go and forgive.

Forgiveness like that shouldn’t be possible. It just shouldn’t.

Johnny left, in the end.

 

Three years later they were both nearly twenty.

Bobby had stopped counting time by the time gone by since Johnny left, other than anniversaries. He got better. Two months after Johnny left the second time he spoke to one of the children. The boy was ecstatic.

He didn’t talk much still. Silence made him happy. But he answered when spoken to. And when he had an idea to be shared.

Johnny hadn’t contacted him since he left the second time.

Bobby moved out of the mansion after he graduated. He moved into an apartment in a small town. He lived on odd jobs: janitor, waiter, occasional mechanic.

The town was quiet. He didn’t have any problems with anyone over the fact that he was a mutant, other than the occasional icy (pun intended) stare from the elders in town.

When his coffee was too hot in the diner he ate in, he cooled it.

When he wanted to skate at the local pond, he froze it. Even in the middle of summer.

He was happy.

He called the mansion once a week, to get an update, and wrote letter to everyone who had written one to him since he left.

He thought of Johnny often. Every day. Every night.

The fire obsessed mutant was never far from his thoughts.

He never tried to find him though.

Johnny would come to him.

One day.

 

John found the tiny town one spring day.

He’d gone to the mansion first. They told him where Bobby was… after extensively checking out what had happened in the last three years.

Just in case.

He found Bobby’s apartment with ease.

Bobby was unlocking the door when he got there.

“Bobby.”

“Johnny.”

Bobby Drake grinned from ear to ear.

John Allerdyce grinned right back.

Finally, they were together.

No more counting.


End file.
